1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, a control method, and a storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, on-demand printing has been adopted at production sites because printing technology is improved by digitization, such as the digitization of an image forming apparatus or orders via the internet. The on-demand printing is performed generally using an electrophotographic printer in order to meet the response to a minimum lot, fast delivery, and the needs of each customer. In the case of such printer, there is a billing model for determining a monthly fee with a billing counter mounted on the printer between a printer vendor and a printing company.
When the a billing counter calculates a charged amount for the printing amount, the billing counter not only calculates the charged amount according to a number of printed pages in color/monochrome/each sheet size, but in recent years also calculates the charge amount by providing color levels (about three color levels) to a conventional full-color by calculating a ratio of color printing area during color printing. The billing counter not only charges a fee of color printing of a printed material using color in one point, but also may charges an appropriate fee in accordance with used amount of consumable such as a toner, for the printing company performing a commercial printing.
Therefore, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2009-282947 discloses a system for predicting and calculating the amount corresponding to the amount of consumed goods when submission of a manuscript. With this system, the amount of the toner measuring rate can be calculated even when it is not actually printed by the printing apparatus, the charge of the metered toner can be calculated by the system, and according to the system, the printing apparatus does not need to provide a determining unit configured to determine the toner usage.
In addition, according to a method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2009-282947, the amount can be calculated without using the mechanism of the accounting counter which is calculated on the printing apparatus. Therefore, it is possible to provide customers with the same fee structure even if both new models with a metered charging counter and an old model with a conventional charging counter of monochrome/full color are provided.
However, the method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2009-282947 is a method for the estimating with the same fee structure, and is not a method for measuring the printing result of the same fee structure. For example, if a paper jam, a communication error, or the like occurs, the actual printed pages may be less than expected printed pages. However, according to the predictive calculation disclosed in the Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2009-282947, the printed pages that are more than that of the print result may be calculated. Also, a recent printing apparatus can make a print job wait on the printing apparatus, and the user can intentionally change the printed pages. In this case, the user can print more the pages than the estimated pages.
In the Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2009-282947, an imaging forming unit of an external controller is used. However, in this case, only the print job via the external controller can be estimated. In other words, the system may be applied only when all printing apparatuses are used for a print job. In contrast, when the job such as copy is used, another modification is required.